


Hunter

by heytheremisterblue



Category: Half-Life
Genre: Angst, Gen, One Shot, Written Before Half-Life: Alyx, hunter gonna getcha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 10:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19271230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heytheremisterblue/pseuds/heytheremisterblue
Summary: The beginning of Episode 2, written from Gordon's perspective.





	Hunter

An electric crackle originated somewhere in the heels, surging its way up through his legs and shooting through his spine to bring all of the little hairs on the back of his neck to attention. The noise, the haunting Combine howl reverbing off mountains and hills happened again. His companion shot a dire look at him to be quiet, listen, don’t make a move until I do. We’re not alone.

There was something out there in the wilderness beyond this abandoned station, something neither of the members of this ragtag team had heard utter its digital screech before. Many, many transorganic creatures—rather, captured slaves to a force painfully more adept than them—lay in the heart of that droning citadel now crushed and sacrificed for a greater ‘good.’ Dozens of species from dozens of planets, not a shred of doubt existed in his mind as he recalled the sights of his ride through the strider pods. Twisted artifacts in a museum of intergalactic colonialism was all they remained to be. In her words, he hoped they didn’t remember who they were—and he also hoped whatever they had just heard was one of the smaller ones. 

She broke into a short sprint to scope out the area from which the horrible noise had come, then another to examine a closed gate that lay in between them and where they were headed. HEV suit and gravity gun, always his responsibility to solve what needed solving, resulting often in breaking things, himself included. His legs would be practically crumbling from the pressure of so many hits, so many impacts of his feet on hard surfaces and instances tumbling meters down through splintered wood floors onto the next or the next-next level of the building, never failing to be the level that happens to be underwater or infested with toxic headcrabs. Perhaps he was bitter, he was big enough to admit. Just a little.

Quiet exploration of the fenced-in courtyard produced a ladder up to a strange catwalk, probably for train car maintenance, he could only assume with his very limited knowledge of anything that wasn’t theoretical physics or how to stay alive for the fifteen seconds it would take him to get to the next first-aid station. He was probably wrong, but it wasn’t like anyone was using the ladder for its intended purpose anymore. So he climbed up, and she stood tall on alert again, her sudden change in posture and focus prompting his neck hairs to threaten rising again. She eased downward again and so did he, breathing out after realizing he hadn’t been.

Be careful up there, she remarked as he tottered his way onto the tin roof of the small building. We don’t want you falling again, klutzo, she didn’t say but they both thought. There was a piece torn off, perhaps by high winds or even the shockwave that shook what remained of City 17 not minutes ago. The gravity gun proved itself useful for the thousandth time since his return by moving the damaged sheet metal out of the way and creating a gap through which he fit to jump into the room below him. The moment he clambered onto the metal underfoot he heard it again, louder, closer. He still could not see it, nor could she from her still scanning, and he did not want to. Hearing its roar was enough to make his heart beat directly through his armor. He rushed as softly as he could to the button which he was sure would open the gate, and it did—that terrible Combine weapon was getting closer with every moment he continued to waste time in this control room. A new exit needed to be found as he would have a great bit of difficulty prying the wooden blue door open without a crowbar to assist him, so he turned to see if there was another way behind him. He saw it.

A completely dreadful thing to look at with its three spindly, twisted legs and its two vertical eyes that glowed Combine-regulation blue and pierced his skull with their sharp, determined glare. It beeped and chirruped at him angrily. White noise, dead air, was replaced with the forceful pumping of blood behind his eardrums and the ever-speeding beat of his heart. His limbs shook. That thing—that horrid creature—was headed in her direction, and his voice escaped him. They had to leave, now, before it was given the opportunity to do anything with either of them.

Trap-door, wedged shut with a two-by-four. Perfect escape. He pulled the wooden spear out of the hooks of the door and blasted it open to hop downwards under the building’s stilts and crawl back through to the outside. There’s something creeping around out here, uttered his partner, and he moved faster at the sound of uncharacteristic fear in her voice. She never feared anything. No, not even the countless no-longer-men that attempted to murder them, or threat of death in the most painful way possible via radioactive explosion in the core of that citadel. If she was afraid, he was too, no matter if it ended up being for the most mundane reason. She did not express fear like this.

Whirring, screaming machinations inside the thing erupted. He crawled faster toward her. It stomped her to the ground, it ripped right through her and tore two gaping holes through her chest. If his body would allow it he would have screamed until his vocal chords each split in half. No, no, no, no, not her. Why not me? He reached out for her in complete desperation and she, with haunting, pained eyes, groped in the air for his hand before being yanked backward by the beast and thrown back to the ground. Suddenly one of the three grotesque legs was aimed at him, but missed in its jab and instead knocked rubble loose that cascaded down onto him, trapping him under. His entire body shook in the suit. He watched her lose consciousness in front of him. One of the very first friendly faces he had seen, daughter of an incredible old companion, bravest person he had met in his entire existence, new life or old. Her lean but strong frame had been taken in the arms of a demon and pierced, hot knife into butter, and thrown away like trash. Why not him? Why not him, was the only question he could ask himself as his vision failed him, head pulsing with pain, forcing him out of his consciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> Wanted to try writing something more visceral, I hope it did its job.


End file.
